Thien Hau Pagoda, Saigon

Feeling like an easy photo shoot on the weekend I thought I would set up something up that was quite simple to quench my sudden thirst for new images.  I arranged for a Vietnamese lady in ‘ao dai’ to work with me inside Thien Hau pagoda, in Saigon’s Chinatown district.   Thien Hau is dedicated to the sea goddess of the same name and is among one of the many striking pagoda’s in the Cholon (as the district is named) area of town. The pagoda is on the main tourist trail and receives hordes of visitors, which makes it harder to focus on the subject matter without all the onlookers but I think the girl I had chosen was reveling in all the attention!  Although it is easy enough to hire striking models in Vietnam, I felt it was important that I kept the subject matter simple, natural and evoking a certain charm, if not a certain schoolgirl like innocence.

The bright pink papers in the background are actually donation slips. Written on them in Chinese characters are the names of the donator, the amount and a tale of fortune or well being. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of them posted on two opposite walls within the pagoda. They made for a striking backdrop to the image of the young girl in her white dress and conical hat.

As the comings and goings of the pagoda quietened down in the early evening I positioned the girl behind the altar and placed a softbox on the floor under her to slightly light up her face as she offered incense to the Goddess.  I am not a strong proponent of flash photography but as fill in light it does make a substantial difference to the effect of the end image although I could have used a second light to take away the shadow of the sticks on her face. There is always room for improvement!

The conical hat, ao dai (long dress), incense sticks at a time of worship presents a quintessential Vietnamese scene that is still surprisingly common in the country although, admittedly, hard to find in a fast developing city such as Saigon.   It is irresistibly photogenic.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 at 5:33 pm. It is filed under Latest Images. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.